Folks are getting a bit short-sighted here.
The problem with diluting is that it sets precedent.
Diluting under the wise and benign rule of BM seems like a good idea because it satisfies short-term greed with no perceived downside.
Bitshares just prints some money to boost the economy.
Sound familiar?
Dilution, inflation, debasement... whatever you want to call it, the end result is always the same.
I state categorically that I3 and the Bitshares community have a moral imperative not to inflate/dilute/debase the share supply.
Doing so is akin to voting to be infected by a disease that will slowly kill BTSX.
A few will get wealthy in the short term, the masses will suffer in the long term.
We do not want to become the US Gov.
I3 has ample development funds that if spent wisely will get Bitshares to critical mass.
They need to get the client/trading platform sorted, phone apps pushed out, fiat gateways in place.
Then do a simple marketing campaign to the crypto crowd and perhaps a non-crypto-but-tech-savvy demographic (ie. Gen X/Y).
This should cause the market cap to increase substantially.
At that point, once the 'hey look at us' marketing is exhausted, they could consider using a referral system or other shenanigans to engage other demographics.
Low hanging fruit first.
+5
Well said.
I think that a part of the problem is one that has been talked about a lot, which is that we simply do not have a clear marketing strategy and a proven team in place to execute it that gives us the warm fuzzy feeling of achievement and progress like we get when it comes to other areas like technology and economics within the Bitshares ecosystem. One that is able to harness the power and intellect of this passionate and intelligent community.
Imagine that we are 11 pages in to arguably the most important "marketing" thread in some time, and as usual it is only our work-horse heros Dan and Stan weighing in on the "executive" level. Aren't people being paid to work and think about these topics?
I believe the situation all of the sudden seems dire and drastic because we don't see incremental marketing achievements or leaders that we can point to, discuss, collaborate with and rally around.
The good news is that we don't need a multi-million dollar solution to solve the problem..today. The idea of an affiliate program is a step in the right direction, but I can tell from the $100 proposed affiliate commission already that it is going to be abused by spammers and "affiliate marketers" and has the potential to do a lot of PR damage in the hands of the wrong people.
The main issue I see is that earlier in this thread BM stated that the topics discussed in the this thread were independent of all other marketing efforts and the people currently working on Bitshares marketing. Please correct me if I am wrong here but that is what I understood. So, if that is correct who is in charge of arguably the most important marketing campaign to date then?
I believe it is a mistake to first try raising millions of dollars for an unproven strategy and campaign. The first and necessary step is to analyze what marketing efforts are being employed and paid for up until now and analyze them. By that I mean analyzed by a third party proven expert so we don't get the usual responses: "He or she is great and working hard, let's support them; let's wait until there is a product; we are focused on the masses" type of commentary, which is not analysis. We need cold analysis based on traffic logs, user activity, accounting and budget review from PROVEN marketing people that are tasked with a deadline and then reporting results to the community. More importantly there needs to be the willingness from I3 to take an honest look at the budget spent thus far the real results it has achieved.
You can run an entire online and social marketing COMPANY today with the tools and resources that are present in the international market that achieves accountable results and more importantly leverages the community and network that we already have for a fraction of the cost of what is being proposed here.